1
Truth Be Told:
Problematizing Historical Truth Through Narration in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
By Inger Ane Svardal
Master’s Thesis
Department of Foreign Languages University of Bergen
November 2015
2
Samandrag
William Faulkner er kjend for si rike evne til å kaste lys på dei mest skuggefylde sidene av dei amerikanske sørstatane, og gjennom si intrikate skildring og komplekse forteljarevne tek han lesaren med inn i ei myteomspunne verd der sanninga avhenger av kven du er, kvar du er frå, og kva opplevingar du ber med deg. Desse emna er sentrale i novella hans, Absalom,
Absalom!, og dei er sentrale i denne oppgåva.
Dei amerikanske sørstatane var, og er framleis, kjend for sine tradisjonar –særskild knytt opp mot tida før borgarkrigen. Slaveriet, rasismen, valden, og den tydelege klasseskilnaden, ikkje berre mellom svart og kvit, men òg mellom kvite var også vitale trekk ved sørstatssamfunnet.
Den økonomiske posisjonen til denne regionen var sterk, mykje grunna slaveriet. Alt dette bidrog til ei samkjensle og eining blant menneska som budde i desse områda om at dei var av eit anna kaliber enn nordlege Amerika. Nederlaget vart difor ekstra tungt å bære når tapet av borgarkrigen var eit faktum, slaveriet vart avskaffa, og økonomien svekka. For unge
menneske var dette særskild problematisk. Dei mangla førstehands kjennskap til korleis regionen deira vaks til å bli den «stormakta» sørstatingane omtala den som, til å vite kvifor deira kaliber ettersigande var betre enn dei frå nordsida av landet, og til å fatte det negative omfanget av slaveriet. Generasjonen som følgde Borgarkrigen hadde berre kjennskap til dette gjennom historier frå menneske som gjerne berre hadde opplevd enden av denne storheita, og som ofte «erfarte» gjennom historier dei sjølv hadde høyrd utan å kunne relatere til dette.
Resultatet var og er usemje om kva som er den sanne historia til sørstatsregionane, og den sanne arva til menneska som er fødd der.
Gjennom denne avhandlinga vil eg hevde at Faulkner sin roman, Absalom, Absalom!, kan sjåast som ei kritisk røyst mot dei som talar «den historiske sanninga» om sørstatane, og at dette vert oppnådd gjennom Faulkner sin intrikate forteljarteknikk. Eg vil hevde at Faulkner, gjennom sine ulike narrative metodar, stiller spørjemål til mennesket si evne til å framstille historiske hendingar på ei sannferdig måte – utan å blande inn personlege kjensler og erfaringar. Vidare vil eg hevde at det såast tvil om mogelegheita for å finne fram til éi historisk sanning. Eg vil utforske korleis Faulkner, gjennom eit samansurium av ulike forteljarstemmer, fortel historia om Thomas Sutpen, og argumentere for at dette både er ein allegori for sørstatane sitt dramatiske endelikt. For å støtte desse hypotesane, vil eg nytte teori som inkluderer Henri Bergson sine idear knytt til «pure duration», reiegjering av myter og sørstatshistorie, samt ulike forteljingsformar og metodar. Metoden eg vil nytte for å framheve denne teorien og støtte hypotesane som vert framstilt, er nærlesing. Gjennom å arbeide tett opp mot romanen sin forteljartekst vil eg, i samband med teoretiske og historie fakta, kunne nå ein konklusjon mot slutten av denne avhandlinga som støtter hypotesane eg har presentert.
I kapittel 1 vil eg reiegjere for Faulkner sin forteljarteknikk. Vidare vil eg gjennomføre ei analyse av dei forteljande karakterane, og reiegjere for effekten av ulikskapane knytt mot kvar forteljar sin særeigne forteljarmåte. Kapittel 2 vil vise korleis mytisk historieframstilling av dei amerikanske sørstatane er tilstade i romanen. Her vil eg fokusere på korleis Faulkner, gjennom sine forteljande karakterar, dramatiserer populære sosiale myter i sin roman, samt reiegjere for kva effekt dette gir. Dette vil føre meg over til kapittel 3, der eg vil argumentere for måten novella verkar å problematisere historisk «sanne» framstillingar av dei amerikanske sørstatane, og korleis dette påverkar karakterane som famnar om desse framstillingane. Her vil eg argumentere for at Faulkner sin forteljarteknikk også problematiserer mennesket si søken etter universelle sanningar, og korleis myter kan fungere som variantar av historiske sanningar.
3
Acknowledgement
There are several people who deserve to be acknowledged for their commitment and support during my process of writing this thesis. I wish to express my gratitude towards my
supervisor, Jakob Lothe – not only for his guidance and advice, but for his patience and understanding throughout this process. Further, I am thankful for the staff at the Department of Foreign Languages for their constructive criticism and insight. I also wish to thank my fellow students for the same reason. Their comments and friendly advice during the WIP seminars have been greatly appreciated.
I am thankful for my wonderful friends, for keeping me as sane as I could possibly be during this process. Know that I appreciate you more than you can imagine. My colleagues and office-buddies at Flora Vidaregåande Skule: Thank you so much for your encouraging words, for being sympathetic in my times of despair, and for the laughs in between.
However, most of all, I wish to express my endless gratitude towards my family for whose love and encouragement I am immensely thankful. Hege and Kristian: I thoroughly appreciate the ways in which you have provided much needed distractions throughout this process, as well as your constant support. Levardo: I am thankful for having you in my life. My parents, Leni and Per Dan Svardal, whose support knows no limitations: thank you so much for believing in me. For pushing me when I needed it, for hours of babysitting, for your love and compassion, and for your well-filled chocolate storage. I could never have done this were it not for you.
Finally, I wish to thank my daughter for giving me perspective, much needed breaks filled with silliness, and her love. This is for you.
Thank you, Inger Ane Svardal
4 Table of Content
Samandrag………...…..ii
Acknowledgement…..………..iii
Table of Content.……….………iv
Introduction………...5
1. Worlds Apart: The Narrative Nature of Absalom, Absalom!... 22
1.1 Faulkner’s Mythical Narration……….………...23
1.1.2. Chronology………24
1.2.3. Repetition………...26
1.2 Analysis of Narrating Characters………29
1.2.1. Miss Rosa and Mr. Compson………29
1.2.2. Quentin and Shreve………..…………..…………....39
1.3 Connected and Detached……….43
2. Myths within Narration………46
2.1. The Cavalier Myth……….47
2.2. The American Dream………53
2.3. The Lost Cause………..57
3. Reality & Myth………..62
3.1 Absalom, Absalom! and The Meaning of Myth………..65
3.2 Preserving the Past – Time, Myth and Memory………..69
3.3 Problematizing Truth………...73
4. Conclusion………..77
Bibliography………81
5
Introduction
“A man’s future is inherited in that man” – William Faulkner
How does one verify historical truth? In this study, I will discuss how Faulkner,
through the complex and mythical narration of his seminal novel Absalom, Absalom! (referred to as AA) demonstrates the ways in which the past remains in the present, how a heritage consisting of inequality and ambiguous historical events causes misperception among the novel’s characters, and ultimately, how complete dependence on mythical history proves to be fatal for the generations following the historical event of the Civil War. I will argue that Faulkner’s narration of AA, through its mythical structure, explores and accounts for a region and a people whose legacy is, arguably, mythically constructed in a problematic manner, thus causing confusion regarding identity and historical facts. Furthermore, discussing Faulkner’s intricate narration, my claim is that by means of his narrative method the novel demonstrates how every person interprets history and memories individually, and thus differently. Creating a true image of past events is therefore problematic at best, since truth itself is predisposed.
In my thesis, I wish to establish how AA illustrates the consequences of mythical history and the way in which it continues to tie the past to the present. I aim to show that through his narration of AA, Faulkner addresses the problems linked to how people come to know, as well as the difficulties revolving around what people can know and what knowledge we ourselves create in order to find meaning. Through my thesis will argue that AA
problematizes people’s search for historical truth, demonstrating as a complex novel through narrative technique how the inevitable blend of knowledge, memory, beliefs, and emotions shape people’s lives and the way they think, interpret, act, and interact. Hence, my problem statement is that Faulkner problematizes truth through his narration of AA.
Biographical context
William Faulkner was an American writer born in Mississippi in 1897. Although his earliest works were poetry, he became famous and highly celebrated for his novels set in the American South, frequently in his fabricated Yoknapatawpha County. Such celebrated works include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!, which is, arguably, his most celebrated oeuvre and the basis for this study.
6 As a Southerner, Faulkner was born into a culture which arguably defined itself by its past, and his works in certainly influenced by this notion. Faulkner belongs to the modernist period, a complex literary trend (ca 1890–1940) in European and American literature
distinguished by a new focus on human beings’ experience of time, a strong interest in the human psyche, and narrative experimentation. In his introduction to The Cambridge
Companion to Modernism, Michael Levenson emphasizes modernist authors’ “use of mythic paradigms, the refusal of norms of beauty, and the willingness to make radical linguistic experiment” (Levenson p. 3). In common with modernist writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, Faulkner explores, not least in the three novels mentioned above,
fundamental questions regarding the nature of narrative fiction and how it can/cannot be separated from questions concerning the nature of human existence (Minter p. 2). Other central themes in modernist literature heavily related to Faulkner’s works are the unsettling problems dealing with “how we know, what we can and cannot know, and how our knowing and believing (and thus our remembering, needing and desiring) are interrelated” (Minter p. 2) These themes, along with personal and moral issues reflecting on social and political concerns such as race, class, failure and success, advantage and disadvantage – are prominent in Faulkner’s fiction.
Published in 1936, Absalom, Absalom! is Faulkner’s seventh novel set in
Yoknapatawpha county. Taking place mostly in the city of Jefferson, and set in the time before, during, and after the Civil War, the story focus mostly on the life of character Thomas Sutpen. The novel revolves around three families of the American South: the Sutpens, the Coldfields, and the Compsons. The novel belongs to the genre known as the Southern Gothic – a fairly new genre which came together in the twentieth century when new literary
naturalism, Southern humor, and dark romanticism merged into a new and potent form of social critique.1 Characteristic features of this genre include the use of macabre and ironic elements in order to examine and question the values of the American South, elements which are all present within this novel. In AA, Faulkner explores and portrays the American South in, demonstrating its complexity, its values and ideals, but also its “otherness” – its violence and inhumanity. Through a myriad of narrators personified mainly through the characters of Miss Rosa, Mr. Compson, Quentin Compson, and Shreve, which will be the narrators considered in this study, the reader is reliving the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen and his dynasty – as well as the South itself. These narrating characters, all embodying the mythical
1 The Companion to Southern Literature (2002), pp. 313–16
7 region of the Deep South at various stages in time with all their flaws and misperception, each attempt to make sense of what is real and what is myth in their re-creation of the Sutpen-story.
Theoretical context
In this study, I focus on narration and the purpose served by Faulkner’s way of narrating AA. It is therefore essential to establish some common ground in regards to the terms used within this study: narrator, narrating character, and narrative. OED defines the term “narrative” as “any report of connected events, actual or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words”, meaning that novels and myths belong within the narrative category.
An important part of any narrative is its narration: the way in which the narrative is presented to its audience. In The Living Handbook of Narratology, Peter Hühn states that narration encompasses techniques through which the one creating the story choses to present it. These techniques include the narrative point of view, the narrative voice, and narrative time. It is also significant that the narration incorporates not only who tells the story, but how it is told – which will be one of the main elements subjected to study in this thesis. A narrative tool in the service of Faulkner as author, the narrator is the voice created to deliver the
information to the reader, and in AA there are several narrators – each putting their personal mark on the presentation of the story. Although there is an omniscient narrator narrating within the course of AA, most of the narrators are first-person narrators, which I will refer to as narrating characters since they also perform key functions as main characters of the novel.
What I seek to establish within the course of this thesis is that the elements of social critique connected to the genre of the novel are detectable through the narrative form of each narrating character. My aim is to show that the narration in AA is presented not only through several narrators, but through different narrative forms.
Through heavily fragmented flashbacks provided by a multitude of narrators, Faulkner presents his narrative employing the narrative technique of stream-of-consciousness, thus allowing the reader to enter the minds of Faulkner’s narrating characters – however confusing that may be. Although it is problematic to say that this confusion is caused deliberately, it is my firm belief that the confusion is caused with intent. One essential reason is that the notion of confusion adds a myth-like quality to the narration. By including and intertwining several popular social myths within his own narration, Faulkner applies a sense of mythology to the narrative itself. There are various elements supporting this view. Among these is Faulkner’s
8 engaging in a technique of circumlocution – using phrases with several words and long
sentences where fewer and shorter would have sufficed, in order to cause a notion of
ambiguity.2 Engaging in such a technique, Faulkner slowly but surely makes his reader aware of events, motivations and emotions, although it is never clear how much of the information presented that can be considered reliable. Through long sentences filled with rich imagery, the reader seems to be left with the responsibility of identifying important information and
separating this from emotional rant, so to speak. David Minter notes that this technique redefines the role of the “solitary reader”, inviting us to engage in an interactive
“collaborative process” between writer and reader (4), channeling Ralph Waldo Emerson’s anticipations in The American Scholar where he presents “creative writing” as a creative collaboration requiring an equally “creative reading” where “the mind is braced by labor and invention” and the words and sentences become “luminous with manifold allusion” (51).
However, one of the questions I wish to discuss in this thesis is what the purpose of this mythical narration really is? In order to answer this question an understanding of the importance of social and historical myth within the USA is crucial. Still, to truly grasp the significance of social and historical myth within the USA it is also necessary to explore the myth itself. Reflecting the time in which it appeared, a myth can provide an image of said period quite uniquely when seen in the light of its importance within society at a given time.
Nevertheless, to properly do so, it is important to establish what is meant by the term “myth”.
Mythic framework is marked by great complexity, as the word myth does not have a unified meaning. As noted by William Marderness, in accordance with Oxford English Dictionary (referred to as OED); popular culture defines myth as a widely held conception that is inherently false, while an academic definition would be a socially constructed narrative used to explain origins and natural events, as well as enforce social rules (15). Marderness also mentions “living myth”; the set of values that define culture and “represent the mythic horizons that define reality for us” (15). It is interesting to note that Marderness states that reality is something that can be individually defined – a point that will be further addressed later on. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s (referred to as Merriam-Webster) full definitions of myth are as “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”, “a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially: one
2Gail Ramshaw, Liturgical Language: Keeping it Metaphoric, Making it Inclusive.
9 embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society”, or “a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence”. Interestingly, Merriam-Webster does not accentuate that mythic historical events are not true or that such people or things are not real. Surely, the use of words like “ostensibly” and “unverifiable” emphasizes the fact that authenticity is highly questionable. Nevertheless – as this thesis aims to show, a possibility is kept alive.
OED defines “myth” as “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events”, “a widely held but false belief or idea”, “a fictitious or imaginary person or thing”, or “an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person”. As we can, the wording is somewhat different from that of Merriam-Webster. Within these definitions, the possibility of a myth carrying some sort of truth is absent. Phrases such as “widely held but false belief”
(my italics), “fictitious or imaginary”, “exaggerated or idealized conception” leave little or no room for interpretations of myths being anything else that constructed or invented. OED further defines the word “false” as “not according with truth or fact”, and the definition of
“true” is “consistent with fact; agreeing with reality”. Consequently, in their nature of being historically unfounded and unverifiable in “truth”, myth might be termed fictional by its connection to narrative structure. Paul Valéry defines myth as “the term for everything which exists and subsists only in the basis of language” (199). However, all different conceptions of myth are merely variants on the same subject – that it is creation and validation of a cultural or social belief, verified only by vast cultural acceptance and belief. Irving Howe argues that the creation of myth in the American South is antagonistic to the idea of a universal, or “true”, history – a conception meaning that Southern myth is voicing an ideal past, or deliberately rejecting accepted history. In other words, if history is an attempt at a linear, objective narrative, myth would be its antithesis – operating counter to time, free of any constrains (28- 29). Patricia Tobin writes in The Time of Myth and History that “Although myth refers to events alleged to have taken place in the past; its operational value is that the specific model which it describes is timeless. Time cannot affect it; it can only affect time” (255). When saying that myth affects time, Tobin suggests that myth can alter the way in which history is viewed – not only regarding how and why, but when as well. In reality, this means that historical events considered to be true or verifiable are, or could be, rejected or substantially altered through myth.
10 Essentially, true history becomes secondary due to lack of flexibility, because truth is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. Furthermore, history is in need of a past and a present, whereas Faulkner states that “Past is never dead. It’s not even past” – meaning that “there is no was, only is”. Establishing that myth and time are correlated, it is interesting to refer to the ideas of Henri Bergson, a philosopher who arguably influenced Faulkner. Bergson
emphasizes “pure duration” (Coppleston, 186), investigating human freedom as it relates to time. Bergson’s philosophy is linked to the idea of patterned-cyclical consciousness, namely, a fusion of the three tenses. Referring to this patterned-cyclical consciousness, Warren TenHouten states that the future is a part of the present. He continues by stating that “by viewing the future as part of the present, inner reality, there exist an ontological principle of order in which humankind, nature, and society, along with the past, present, and future, are seen as an enduring totality or gestalt.” (58-59) Bergson believed in the fluidity of fusing the three tenses. His view of “pure duration” is an attempt to understand how our personality is created from a series of subjective impressions and changes.
Ultimately, pure duration completely rejects units of outer, linear time – focusing only on what is happening inside our minds as we live, and thus rejecting the way linear time atomizes our experiences. More importantly, however, pure duration seeks to provide a very concrete reality to our memories because memories, as they affect our present, are not really memories, but part of the present due to its constant effect on how a person behaves or acts in the
present. It is “the form taken by the succession of our states of consciousness when our ego lets itself live, when it abstains from making a separation between its present and preceding states” (Bergson, 73). However, the problem occurs due to the general opinion of time – linear time, which is the complete opposite of the Bergsonian fluidity, “as it articulates classificatory distinctions between the tenses of time, past, present, and future…this linear conceptualization of time is socially institutionalized on a global scale…and widely
considered self-evident” (TenHouten, 59). Jean-Paul Sartre, who analyzes the “metaphysics of time” (77), argues that the Faulknerian man “views time as his greatest misfortune” (76) because his creator has tampered with time – overwhelming the present with a past that is constantly “superpresent” (77). Thus, Sartre implies that the typical Faulknerian character is overwhelmed by memories of the past, which he or she ultimately over-identifies with.
Hence, an important question arises: If the past continues to affect our existence, if it never ends – how can one say that it something is, in fact, past? As the OED definition of
“past” is “gone by in time and no longer existing”, per definition, the term falls flat if one
11 agrees with Faulkner – that the past itself does not exist. This thesis will examine how
Faulkner, through his narration of AA, accounts for the deep impact put upon man by his legacy – or past, in relation to mythical narration – which brings me to my epigraph. William Faulkner states that a man’s future is, in fact, inherited; he suggests that any future is, in a sense, determined by the past. This is a statement and a mindset Faulkner brought with him into the world of Yoknapatawpha County, and it is particularly visible in AA through his narrating characters. Through Faulkner’s narrative, the reader can identify the burden of each character’s past, acquiring a sense of how it ultimately shapes the outcome of their stories.
That the character’s found in AA are obsessed with their past has been established by several scholars. However, what I will argue as significant, which is not stated by Sartre, is that this obsession is directly correlated to the embracing of myth.
Historical context
It is problematic to discuss Faulkner’s works without addressing the complex system of ideology, narrative and history from which he arose. In order to comprehend the following discussion, it is important to address some undeniable, and some dubious, historical facts about US history, including the decades leading up to the Civil War and its aftermath. I believe this brief account to be significant and necessary due to the direct correlation between historical events and the myths deriving from them. US history is relatively new and
manifested through polarizing views and experiences, which established the foundation for the myths surrounding both the northern and southern regions. Therefore, I believe that an outline of the historical backdrop of the very novel in question is in order.
Clearly, stories of the Antebellum South are filled with contradictions. On the one hand, a romantic vision unfolds, baring the sight of white, flourishing plantations with an elegantly clad gentleman promenading the premises accompanied by a lady – graceful in both attire and demeanor; the whispers of virtuous Victorian England, alive and prosperous within America.
In the background colored people are working gratefully in lavish cotton fields: thankful for having become part of his or her master’s “extended family”. Through fiction, several authors embraced this view as well as the most enduring myth in Southern fiction: the image of the Antebellum South as a pastoral Eden, and ultimately a place of benevolence and prosperity.
One such author was John P. Kennedy, the writer of southern classic Swallow Barn. Here the reader is introduced to the character of Virginian planter Frank Meriwether and his cozy plantation realm. Throughout, Swallow Barn is presented as a “very agreeable place”, due to
12 Meriwether’s nature as “a kind master” who is “considerate toward his dependents, for which reason, although he owns many slaves, they hold him in profound reverence, and are very happy under his dominion”. James Cobb states that although there is a mild satire in this work which generally was detected, Swallow Barn was nevertheless “treated as an essentially accurate “still life” of Southern plantation life (Cobb, 24). Susan J. Tracy notes that the
planter-hero is richly represented in antebellum Southern literature, whose main genre was the historical romance. Southern writers adapted this form from Samuel Richardson’s sentimental novel and Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel. In her own words, “Southern writers borrowed from and modified each of these forms to create in the Southern novel a hybrid form of the new genre, one that envisioned the men of the planter class engaging during the American War of Independence in a heroic world-historical struggle for their race, class, section and country” (p.9). This vision was of immense importance due to the fact that the differences between North and South had led to a polarization of the two regions. As the conflict between North and South became increasingly potent, the question of slavery was at the root of the struggle. Despite multiple fictitious narratives embracing the image of a well-functioning slave system where the masters were kind and the slaves were happy, the horror of slavery was constantly present. Consequently, justifying slavery as a “natural institution” was of immense importance. Equally important was the portrayal of the planter: He was not a power- hungry brute, but a gentleman whose grandeur and grace was undeniable – a hero of
diligence, courage and moral. The keeping of slaves was simply preserving natural hierarchy.
However, the purpose of the antebellum historical romance is not merely to provide a conservative and idealized vision of Southern society, but to offer an excessive Southern nationalist interpretation of the American War of Independence – glorifying the Southern role in its victorious outcome in 1783. Tracy continues by stating that this glorification “argues for a post-war society in which the “naturally superior” leaders of that heroic victory – the
members of the planter class – will govern”. (9) However dissatisfied with the governing by the British Empire, Walter R. Mead states that the Americans never believed the British civilization to be one of evil: it was recognized as their own civilization, hence “obviously good”, but the revolution was “the last round of the eternal struggle between the good and evil forces within British society” (35). This can be compared to the similar struggle unfolding within the US, where the same conflicting forces divided the country. Even though the US had won its independence from Britain, Americans continued to be influenced by European (British and French) lifestyle, particularly revolving around social framework heavily marked
13 by Victorianism. Anne C. Rose elaborates on “Victorianism centering on its commitment to self-control, social order, and absolute values” (Rose p. 7), and Daniel Singal characterizes Victorianism by referring to “a distinctive set of bedrock assumptions…a belief in a
predictable universe presided over by a benevolent God and governed by immutable natural laws, a corresponding conviction that humankind was capable of arriving at a unified and fixed set of truths about all aspects of life, and as insistence on preserving absolute standards based on a radical dichotomy between that which was deemed “human” or “civilized” and that regarded as “animal” (“Towards a Definition”, 9). In these “fixed set of truths” and
“natural laws” one could find the “truth” founding slavery. It is also significant that southerners identified themselves with the nobles of England, using this as a fundamental framework for their own aristocracy.
But what aristocracy? The thought of an established aristocracy within the South helped founding the notion of inequality not only between black and white, but amongst whites as well – especially between northerners and southerners, something which furthered the growing conflict between the regions in the newly independent nation. Post-Independence it was significant to form a united union with a shared national identity. The problem was, however, that the two regions of North and South had established quite opposing national identities reflecting their economic and social structure. Paul Boyer notes that the United States had become a nation of two distinct regions: The North had a booming economy based on trade, family farms, industry, mining, and transportation, with an increasing urban
population, massively supported by European immigration. Conversely, the South was dominated by an established plantation system founded on slavery. The national image of the two regions mirrored these differences. In many regards, the South was a backwards region:
lagging behind in regards to industrialization, urbanization and even education. Boyer notes that “as long as southerners believed that an economy founded by cash crops would remain profitable, they had little reason for leaping into the uncertainties of industrialization.” (342).
Due to white southerner’s rejection of compulsory education, illiteracy remained high in the South, even as it declined in the North. Being self-sufficient, agricultural and independent, the middle-class and poor whites did not see the need for education or the value of the written word since they did not frequently deal with urban areas. As for the planter elite, they had no use for educated white work force since “they already had a black one that they were
determined to keep illiterate lest it acquire ideas of freedom” (342).
14 Associating the growth of urban areas and factories with progress, northerners concluded that since few of these traits were to be found in the South, southerners were strangers to the very notion of progress. Hence southern stasis was measured up to northern, dynamism, and ultimately the common perception of the Cavalier-planter was that, however noble in manner, he could not quite meet the demands of a rapidly changing society. There was a growing perception that the South was holding on to a world that was no longer relevant – that essentially: chivalry was dead.
As stated by James McPherson in the foreword to The American Civil War, “the centrality of the Civil War to American history is indisputable” (7). Several hundred thousand soldiers lost their lives within the four years the war lasted, including 30% of the male population of the South between ages 20-40. Furthermore, McPherson notes how the war “wreaked havoc and destruction in the South” – wiping out “two-thirds of the assessed values in the South (including slaves)”. The agriculture, upon which the southern economy was utterly dependent, suffered severely as well. Over half of the region’s farm-machinery was left destroyed, and the livestock were consumed in great numbers. Needless to say, the losses were devastating.
Ultimately, the North grew rich while the once-rich South became temporarily poor as the national political power of the slave owners and rich southerners ended. These historical facts are indisputable, and it was apparent that the southern loss of the Civil War caused
complications within the previously proud region. However, it seems as though the overall consequences for the country as a whole were positive. Because victory belonged to the liberty-loving liberals of the North, the issue of slavery would now come to an end. Abolition was a fact, and thus the country got its new beginning and a “new birth of freedom”, as Lincoln stated in his speech at Gettysburg.
Mythical framework
As the US history is severely affected by myth, it is necessary to account for the central myths employed in AA; the myth of the Cavalier, the myth of the American Dream, and the myth of the Lost Cause. This is significant not only because these myths affect both the narration as well as the plot of the story presented, but also because these social myths are crucial parts of the history of the United States in general and the South in particular. Closest to the founding history of the United States, and the growing polarization of the northern and southern regions, is the myth of the Cavalier. This is perhaps the most prominent Southern
15 myth, as it explains much of the Southern mindset of honor, pride, and respectability – which also is heavily represented in AA. Furthermore, this myth was significant when separating the North from the South within the US, and was frequently used as a way of explaining how it was possible that one country had come to be so polarized in temperament and values.
Ultimately, when forming a national identity – the myth of the Cavalier was central.
The foundation of the Cavalier myth was the belief that the Virginian planter elite consisted of descendants from the English cavaliers – royalist supporters of King Charles 1;
referring back to Virginia’s beginning as a royal colony in the seventeenth century, which further contained the notion that said elite were, in fact, the Virginia dynasty, 3 hence “holding exceptional ranks and privileges”. Marshall Fishwick talks about the FFV – the First Families of Virginia, referring to the families in Virginia who were wealthy and socially prominent, not necessarily the first families to settle within the colony. Another factor was that primogeniture favored the first born child, or son, to inherit land and titles back in England, which resulted in the sons coming in second or third in line going out to the colonies to make their fortune and establish themselves as landowning nobles. As a consequence, Virginia evolved as a society descending from second or third sons of English gentry who inherited land grants or land in Virginia, who in return formed partially what became the American southern elite.
The empathy of many of these early, supposedly aristocratic, Virginia settlers for the Crown led to the term "distressed Cavaliers" being applied to the Virginia oligarchy. The myth claims that Cavaliers who served under King Charles I fled to Virginia, which is the reason why Virginia commonly could be referred to as "Cavalier Country". British historian John Keegan notes that “As early as 1660 every seat on the ruling Council of Virginia was held by members of five interrelated families, and as late as 1775 every council member was
descended from one of the 1660 councilors"(334). This interrelation was made possible through marriage, and ties between equally prominent families secured the ownership of valuable pieces of land and social status.
Of course, such aristocratic ties were hard to verify, but the myth was still being kept alive within the southern regions. Nevertheless, its popularity did not explode until the 1800s.
As the conflict between North and South grew to become more potent, Virginia suffered from economic decline – in contrast to the northern states. Cobb notes that the Ratification of the Constitution was excessively positive for the northern regions, which expansion of
3 «VIRGINIA DYNASTY»: a term applied to the succession of Virginia presidents in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (Dictionary of American History)
16 manufacturing and commerce led to an economic growth surpassing that of the southern regions. In return, the severe economic decline produced a Virginia migration that lasted roughly from 1780 to 1830 (22). As stated in The Companion, “Residents fled the Old
Dominion for more promising economic prospects in the newly developing states in the south and west – carrying with them their cavalier heritage and their reverence for their state’s glorious past” (131-132). As this occurred, people moved away from Virginia to pursue a desire of being embedded in the self-pronounced American aristocracy, despite not having the
“necessary” family ties linking back to the cavaliers. It was not of importance, though,
whether the myth was verifiable. The significance was in it being believed, hence the Cavalier myth, which supported the natural superiority of southerners, was viewed as extremely
valuable: “By the early decades of the nineteenth century the myth of the cavalier had spread all over the South” (The Companion 131-132). As this short outline suggests, the English nobleman was alive and prospering within America through manner and memory.
However, if you ask people today what notion they consider typically American, many would accentuate the American Dream. When attempting to form a national identity Post- Independence, the problem was that the two regions of North and South had established quite opposing national identities reflecting their economic and social structure. Ultimately, then, the image broadcast by northern regions when attempting to establish a national identity post- Independence was that the American man was in charge of his own fortunes: every man could make of himself whatever he saw fit, despite his legacy or lack thereof. Arguably, the element founding the myth of the American Dream was the Declaration of Independence. The
Declaration was rarely referred to after serving its purpose following the announcing of independence. However, Stephen Lucas notes that after being the centerpiece of Abraham Lincoln’s rhetoric and policies in the 1860s, its second sentence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language” (p. 85), and these
“unalienable rights” led to people going out in “pursuit of Happiness” and wealth. Since “all men are created equal”, notions of class were disregarded, thus causing people to liberate themselves from the orders of social structure. Stories to exemplify and validate this trend were numerous, several deriving out of old colonial Virginia. A vast number of people migrated from this area to pursue a desire of being embedded in the southern aristocracy originating from the Cavalier, despite lacking the necessary family ties linking back to such
17
“heritage” – ultimately pursuing the American Dream. Through forceful ambition many succeeded in their quest, and wealth was no longer reserved for those born into it, as noted by David Singal: “Men on the make with sharp wit, few scruples, and no pedigree flocked to the booming cotton lands of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia in search of instant fortunes; with a few years of hard work and a little luck…they could soon elevate themselves to the stature of “gentlemen” (13).
The notion of the American Dream was founded. Interestingly, Singal puts
“gentlemen” in quotation marks to accentuate that those of newfound wealth were not, in fact, true gentlemen – only sharing some of the qualities of gentlemen: wealth. As Singal points out, “pedigree” was no longer a central issue on the path to wealth, and “gentlemen” emerged out of the soil like the cotton itself: fiercely ambitious, with “no scruples” standing in the way of their success. These newcomers were determined to create a new existence, including power and respectability whatever the cost or consequence. Thus, wealth and position became accessible to every man in America not shy of “hard work” and favored by “a little luck” and essentially, ambition out-weighed heritage. Promoting that every man was equal to one another, the myth of the American Dream disputed everything considered characteristically southern, and Post-Civil war, the northern ideals ultimately became the national ideals.
From the ruins of the destroyed South arose the myth of the Lost Cause, which Gary Gallagher explains as a set of beliefs endorsing the virtues of the antebellum South,
expressing a view of the Civil War as an honorable struggle to preserve those virtues so widely advocated in popular culture, especially within southern societies (1). This notion is further explained by Alan Nolan, who looks to historian Gaines Foster in his account: “…it is fair to say that there are two independent versions of the war. On one hand there is the history of the war, the account of what in fact happened. On the other there is what Gaines Foster calls the “Southern interpretation” of the event. This account, “codified”, according to Foster, is generally referred to as “the Lost Cause”…originated in Southern rationalizations of the war.”(12). The “cause” had been to ensure the act of secession from the Union and to secure the southern states’ rights, or, to preserve the system of slavery. However, when this cause was, in fact, lost after the Civil War, the new “cause” became focused on “softening the blow” so to speak. Essentially, the beliefs of the Lost Cause were now founded upon several historically debatable (if not inaccurate) elements, including a claim stating that the
Confederacy initiated the Civil War to defend states' rights rather than to preserve slavery, and the correlated assertion that slavery was benevolent rather than cruel (12-14).
18 While most agree that slavery and abolition was the main cause of the Civil War, some voices will claim preservation of states’ rights. There has even been questioning regarding whether or not the South had any real chance at victory. Within his own work, Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson reflects a renowned view when he argues that Confederate victory was at least possible (855). On the contrary, Civil War historian Shelby Foote represents a different view altogether, which is noted in Ward, Geoffrey Ward’s The Civil War: An Illustrated History: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back ... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War." (272) Furthermore, the question of patriotism was highlighted. Did the southerners want victory strongly enough? One claim is that there was a distinct difference between slave owners and non-slave owner when it came to dedication in combat. However, most historians agree that patriotism prevailed on the southern side of the battlefield.Within The Confederate War, Gallagher cites General Sherman who in early 1864 commented: "The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired." Despite their massive losses of both wealth and slaves, with the pending prospect of starvation, Sherman continued, "yet I see no sign of let up – some few deserters – plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out."
(57). Likewise, McPherson, in his work For Cause and Comrades, found signs of vigorous, lasting patriotism after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, and notes that these letters show that the soldiers truly believed they were fighting for their own type freedom and liberty, even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing by the end of the war (169-72). Whether or not such letters can be counted as an accurate source of facts is a different matter entirely; which will be elaborated on further later on.
Consequently, besides playing up the “national/cultural differences” between North and South, emphasizing the chivalrous cavaliers of the South, the notions founded the beliefs in the Lost Cause included typically apologist views of slaves and slavery (as the previously mentioned faithful slave and gentle master). Furthermore, the belief that the South was not defeated as much as “overwhelmed by massive Northern manpower and materiel” (17) was significant. This belief was accentuated to an extent that Southern schools provided an
alternative curriculum in schools, where their version of the events connected to the Civil War were portrayed. This kind of biased history writing ultimately caused great misconception among the subsequent generation Southerners; who did not know what was real and what was correlated to the myth of the Lost Cause.
19 Method
In order to support my problem statement that Faulkner problematizes the notion of truth through his narration of Absalom, Absalom!, it will be useful and necessary to approach the novel directly. Through close reading I will interpret and discuss this relationship between myth and narration in order to establish how Faulkner’s immersion of popular myths into the narration of AA is problematizing an idea of a collective truth. By engaging in the method of close reading, my goal is to argue that Faulkner accounts for the overall process of
mythmaking, as it manifests numerous aspects of human existence, through his narration. This notion is supported by this statement made by Montserrat Ginés: “While showing
understanding for those of his characters who have inherited the burden of the past, at the same time Faulkner regards with skepticism their retreat from the real world” (9). Due to Faulkner’s personal experiences with the “immoderate worship of the past so deeply rooted in the Southern mind,” he has the ability to write compassionately, with an “acute awareness of the propensity of human beings to mythmaking” (122-23). By close reading the novel in question while seeing it in relation to the theory revolving myth, time and memory, my aim is to prove and exemplify that Faulkner’s narration is effected by this “skepticism” noted by Ginés; thus problematizing notion of historical truth.
Within the course of this introduction I have theoretically established Faulkner’s employment of three social myths which dominate American popular culture, within his narration of AA. However, my main focus is, and will be throughout the thesis, how the theories revolving around myth and time fit into Faulkner’s narration of AA. Referring to my main text, I will argue that William Faulkner’s mythical narrative highlights the magnitudes of Southern, and American, mythical history. I will discuss how confusion and uncertainty revolving around heritage lead to desperate attempts to either hold on to an ambiguous past or to make sense of it. Faulkner witnessed the consequences of this confusion during his own upbringing in his own time, and in my thesis I will discuss how Faulkner’ narration of AA can be viewed as a critical voice against the many attempts to portray the “truth” about the South.
This study is not a full analysis of AA, and it will not engage in an analysis of plot and
characters in a general manner, hence, there will be important aspects that may seem forgotten or ignored. However, this is due to the main focus of my study, and the limitations to my analysis will be reflecting that focus. Furthermore, I do not seek to out the flaws in Southern social structure, nor do I claim to explain and condemn the ways of Southern social structure past and present.
20 Rather, I will focus on William Faulkner’s use of mythical narration as a means to illustrate and problematize any notion of historical truth about that social structure. I consider AA to problematize “true stories” about the South (or anywhere else, for that matter).
Consequently, my aim is to explain how the mythical narrative employed in AA mirrors the significance of mythic historical truth experienced in real life. Through his mythical narrative technique and form, Faulkner explores and problematizes people’s ability to form historical truth based on personal experiences, feelings and hearsay, rejecting both time and actual events, thus questioning whether an absolute truth is possible to obtain. I will argue that Faulkner’s narrative style strengthens the experience of AA as a critical account of the way in which the heritage of the southern Confederacy continues to influence American society, proving that the past is not, in fact, past. The question which I will attempt to answer is how, through his myriad of narrators, Faulkner’s myth-like narrative technique serves to
problematize a notion of any existing, definite historical truth, and how Faulkner’s complex and diverse narration of AA accentuates a notion that an absolute truth is non-existing or predisposed at best.
Outline of following chapters
In chapter 1, I will account for Faulkner’s narrative form and how the various narrators contribute to very different versions of the story presented based on the character’s personal experiences. In order to do so, I will analyze the narrating characters in order to highlight coherence between the way in which Faulkner narrates through each narrating character and the way the characters are affected by personal experience. This will not be an attempt of a full in-depth analysis of each narrating character, but an analysis of how the consequence of personal experience are visible through the different narrating characters and their distinct way of narrating. Chapter 2 will discuss the way in which the selected historical myths are represented throughout the novel. Chapter 3 will serve as an exemplification on how the narration of AA can be viewed as a means of problematizing historical truths in relation to time and memory. Here I will use the analysis of the narrative technique and the narrating characters to exemplify how they are affected by the immersion of historical myths within the narration. Finally, I will present my concluding points.
21
22
Chapter I Worlds Apart:
The Narrative Nature of Absalom, Absalom!
As stated in my introduction, this chapter will provide an account for Faulkner’s narrative form, discussing how the various narrators contribute to, and actually present, very different versions of the story presented based on the character’s memory. Due to the
importance of each narrating character, I will analyze them in order to highlight coherence between historical myths and the personal crises experienced by each narrator. Although I do not provide an in-depth analysis of each narrating character, in order to eventually analyze how historical myths are visible through the different narrating characters (chapter two) and their distinct way of narrating, it is difficult not to touch upon each narrating character’s character, so to speak – which is what I will aim to do over the course of this chapter.
In his narration of AA, Faulkner is juxtaposing ostensible fact, conscious guesswork, and downright speculation, with the implication that reconstructions of the past remain
irretrievable and therefore imaginative. Faulkner presents his narrative through heavily fragmented flashbacks provided by a multitude of narrators, employing the narrative technique of stream-of-consciousness; thus allowing the reader to enter the minds of Faulkner’s narrating characters – however confusing that may be. However, I will seek to explore if Faulkner’s narration of AA can be treated on the level of myth; as a fable that enables the reader to preview the deepest levels of the unconscious and thus better understand the alleged basis for the narrating characters; the people of the South. By Faulkner’s
employment of various narrators, each expressing their interpretations of the narrative, AA alludes to the historical and cultural spirit of Faulkner's South, where the past is always present and constantly in a state of alteration by the people who tell and retell the story as time progresses; thus exploring the process of myth-making into his narration, as well as problematizing conceptions of truth.
Faulkner is engaging in a technique of circumlocution – using phrases with several words and long sentences where fewer and shorter would have sufficed, in order to cause a notion of
23 ambiguity.4 Engaging in such a narrative technique, Faulkner slowly but surely makes his reader aware of events, motivations and emotions, although it is never clear how much of the information presented that can be considered reliable. Through lengthy sentences filled with rich imagery, the reader seems to be left with the responsibility of separating important information from emotional torment. Minter notes that this technique redefines the role of the
“solitary reader”, inviting us to engage in an interactive “collaborative process” between writer and reader (Minter, 4), channeling Emerson’s anticipations of a creative collaboration requiring an equally “creative reading” where the words and sentences become “luminous with manifold allusion” (Minter, 51). Through different methods and techniques, the narrators of AA exemplify the post-bellum Southerners who are left to pick up the pieces of their dream of an Eden; a paradisiacal South is ruined by the Civil War. It appears that the narrators attempt to create a myth revolving around, and prompted by, the Southern fall from grace, in order to either understand it or to escape to a time that, for them, made more sense. Within the next sections, I will analyze each narrating character and explore how their narrations differ from one another.
1.1 Faulkner’s Mythical Narration
Rosa Coldfield refers to Judith as a “widow before she is a bride”. General Compson informs his grandchild that Sutpen had a “design”. Charles Bon is supposed to marry Henry Sutpen’s sister, Judith. Charles Bon is Henry and Judith Sutpen’s half-brother. Henry Sutpen kills Charles Bon. Years and years after, Rosa tells Quentin her story who tells it to his college roommate, Shreve, who is Canadian. The other characters hail from the American South. Through his complex narration of AA, Faulkner keeps his reader on her toes
throughout the novel, inviting the reader to partake in collecting the loose threads of the story.
Faulkner initiates seemingly explanatory sequences – then quits them only to return to the same sequence later in the story, usually at the same time as presenting a quite different event.
Essentially, then, through Faulkner’s intricate narration, the context is experienced and the readers gain “knowledge” and insight as significance is gathered from the narrative formation, while simultaneously adding their own perceptions to the construction. David Minter notes that Faulkner’s fiction can be “seen as engaging problems that initially might appear to have limited potential for compelling fiction – that is, problems having to do with how we come to
4Gail Ramshaw, Liturgical Language: Keeping it Metaphoric, Making it Inclusive.
24 know, what we can know, how and what we create, and how our knowing, remembering, believing, and desiring enter into and shape our lives as well as our thinking, writing, and reading” (Minter, 4). This, I believe, correlates with the way in which Faulkner narrates AA, and especially the way the novel begins. The very beginning of the novel is, in fact, not the beginning – but a memory of past events. By the end of the first chapter Faulkner has already revealed the basic “facts”5 of the story.
The myths accounted for in my introduction, however different they may be, are
ultimately linked together through history. Also, they are all represented within AA in regards of emphasizing changing of time and the non-changing of time. Clearly, time is essential.
Faulkner’s characters in AA are obsessed with the past, one way or the other. In order to make sense of their present and future, the characters struggle to create a series of “true” events to explain their past – which again could partly explain their current state. This is not an easy task. Truth is not easily attained, much due to the mythical nature of the characters heritage – mainly concerning history.
1.1.2. CHRONOLOGY
Faulkner’s works are often characterized by a deliberate working across time and space;
seemingly ignoring the restrictions of chronology by incessantly referring to and commenting upon past events. As Faulkner’s narration jumps back and forth between the past and the present, history itself becomes fragmented. Faulkner’s relentless repetition and constant dismissal of chronology stress the notion of an ever-existing past, and a rejection of time itself. A substantial example is the fact that one of AA’s most prominent narrating characters, Quentin Compson, committed suicide in The Sound and the Fury (1929), casting a shadow upon his entire existence in AA (1936).
When discussing history and myth’s correlation to narration in AA it is impossible not to mention the significance of time and memory, and how these elements correlate to the
significance of chronology (or the lack thereof) in the novel. Paying attention to the narration of AA, it becomes clear that the role of memory is both central and significant, but time and memory is not presented in a chronological manner. In my introduction, I commented upon the nature of the novel’s beginning; noting that the beginning is not the beginning – but a memory of past events. The narration shifts from Rosa’s office in a “long still not weary dead
5 My clams around the word “fact” is to emphasize the uncertainty connected to these actualities.
25 September afternoon”, sitting in that “dim hot airless room” (7) to a “summer of wistaria”
filled with the smell of Mr. Compson’s cigar as he and Quentin “sat on the gallery…until it would be time for Quentin to start” (31) getting ready for his journey to Harvard. The transition from chapter five to chapter six, mark yet another chronological narrative shift.
Leading up to that point, Rosa bitterly tells Quentin about her experiences after Wash Jones has told her that “Henry has done shot that durn French feller. Kilt him dead as beef” (133).
By the end of that following chapter, Rosa and Quentin are back at Sutpen’s Hundred, run- down and decayed after the destructive Civil War, where Rosa tells Quentin that “There’s something living in that house…Something living in it. Hidden in it. It has been out there for years, living hidden in that house” (172). The next page, the next chapter begins with
describing the “snow on Shreve’s overcoat sleeve” and Quentin receiving a letter from Mr.
Compson in his “strange room, across this strange iron New England snow” (173).
This dismissal of chronology is central throughout the novel, and it is important to state how significant this ambivalence towards chronology really is. Almost, ironically, Faulkner provides a Chronology and Genealogy appended to the end of AA, as if to verify the Sutpen story. However, by its placement at the end of the novel, the diligent reader would have already formed her of his idea of the chronology before reaching this “blueprint”. After an attempt of untangling a complex set of narratives, this reader has become too involved in the narrating collaboration to concede full authority, even to the author whose name appears on the cover. The pages of the novel are afflicted with examples of failed authors; characters whose narrative contributions fall flat. It is thus problematic for the reader to assume at Faulkner has a greater authority, or that the facts presented towards the end are actually real.
Thus, AA is founded upon failure; Sutpen’s failure to establish a dynasty and the South’s failure to win the Civil War. As will be elaborated further, each narrating character’s narrative fails as well; from the outraged fantasies of Rosa to Shreve’s geographically caused
incomprehension, culminating in Quentin’s hopeless misconception. As these characters attempt to re-create the story, I will argue that they engage in a myth-making process which can never be resolved or completed, thus none of the narrating characters can be permitted a total success. If, as claimed in my introduction, myth is working against time, the narrative dismissal of chronology is a function of its dependence on myth. Hence, the disrupted chronology can be viewed as a symptom of the mythic focus and structure that characterizes AA. Through this dismissal of chronology, and the way chaotic way in which the information is passed on to the reader, Faulkner reveals the basic story of AA with such secrecy and
26 ambiguity that the reader (at least this was true in my case) is left with the previous mentioned questions pushing human nature forward: the “hows” and “whys”, thus leaving the basis of the story as unverifiable and myth-like.Hence, it is not significant when the story is revealed – because the “hows” and “whys” are left open due to the ambiguity linked to the narrator’s memories and experiences, or lack thereof.
1.1.3. REPETITION
The first chapter of AA is an excellent example of Faulkner’s narrating style throughout the novel: Engaging in the earlier mentioned technique of circumlocution, Faulkner’s narration is demanding and relentlessly repetitive, immersed with rich imagery, and fragmented passages. Within the course of the first chapter, Faulkner mentions Sutpen’s arrival in the city of Jefferson six different times, all in different ways; each time serving a different purpose – which will be further discussed when analyzing the narrating characters in the following chapter. Common for all six versions, however, is that they are based on
memories and experiences, or attempts to make sense of other people’s memories and
experiences. As mentioned, Faulkner reveals the basic facts of the novel’s plot within the first chapter, and when establishing these rudimentary “facts” of his narrative, he engages in an almost excessive use of repetition, as in this passage:
It seems that this demon – his name was Sutpen – (Colonel Sutpen) – Colonel Sutpen.
Who came out of nowhere and without warning upon the land with a band of strange niggers and built a plantation – (Tore violently a plantation, Miss Rosa Coldfield says) – tore violently. And married her sister Ellen and begot a son and a daughter which – (Without gentleness begot, Miss Rosa Coldfield says) – without gentleness.
Which should have been the jewels of his pride and the shield and comfort of his old age, only (Only they destroyed him or something or he destroyed them or something.
And died) – and died. Without regret, Miss Rosa Coldfield says – (Save by her) Yes, save by her. (And by Quentin Compson) Yes. And by Quentin Compson. (9, Faulkner’s italics)
Faulkner employs an omniscient narrator, essentially revealing the entire story. What is interesting, however, is the way he goes about doing it. When paying attention to the language, it is strikingly repetitive and hesitant; “his name was Sutpen – (Colonel Sutpen) – Colonel Sutpen”, “and built a plantation – (Tore violently a plantation, Miss Rosa Coldfield says) – tore violently”. In phrases like this there is a distinct notion of uncertainty and of reassurance. Furthermore, it is as though the narrator is correcting himself through repetition, modifying the words slightly before repeating them, as if to confirm that this time the
27 information is correct. However, phrases such as “It seems” and the repetitive sentence “Miss Rosa Coldfield says” suggest that the narrator is not the primary source of the information provided, and that in fact he does not seem to fully trust the source from which he received the information. It appears as though the narrator is trying to make sense of the story – “only they destroyed him or something or he destroyed them or something” – which establishes an uncertainty as to whether or not the information is correct. This raises an important question:
If the narrator does not know, how can the reader know? The mentioned quotation does not only reveal the outline for the basic story, it functions as a repetition of the first mention of Sutpen’s arrival in Jefferson, which is narrated by the character of Miss Rosa:
Out of quiet thunderclap he would abrupt (man-horse-demon) upon a scene peaceful and decorous as a schoolprize water color, faint sulphur-reek still in hair clothes and beard, with grouped behind him his band of wild niggers like beasts half tamed to walk upright like men, in attitudes wild and reposed, and manacled among them the French architect with his air grim, haggard, and tatter-ran... (8)
Here, the mythical element is apparent as the narrator depicts Sutpen’s arrival in Jefferson. He does not simply come into town, he abruptly appears “out of quiet thunderclap”, disturbing his “peaceful and decorous” surroundings with his “band of wild niggers” flocked behind him. Not only does this narration seek to portray Sutpen as non-human, its intention is to portray him as a Satanic figure – “man-horse-demon”, beast and man intertwined. In their
“wild and reposed” attitudes, the demonic Sutpen and his wild niggers reject the noble composure expected among the Cavaliers of the South. Through this dramatic and theatrical narration of Sutpen’s arrival, it is logical to assume that Faulkner attempts to accentuate a notion of trauma and astonishment. Clearly, Miss Rosa’s narration of this event highlights her emotional connection to it, which again leads the reader to ponder whether her version is authentic. As a contrast, Faulkner’s omniscient narrator mentions Sutpen’s arrival in a slightly less theatrical manner, building on information Quentin received from Mr. Compson: “…that Sunday morning in June in 1833 when he first rode into town out of no discernible past and acquired his land no one knew how and built his house, his mansion, apparently out of nothing and married Ellen Coldfield and begot his two children…and so accomplished his allotted course to its violent (Miss Coldfield at least would have said, just) end” (11). This somewhat more stoic repetition of this significant event makes the reader aware of the contrasting emotions connected to Sutpen’s arrival. It becomes clear that “no one knew”
much about the character of Sutpen. Words and phrases such as “no discernible past” and
“apparently out of nothing” further accentuate the conspicuous lack of historical facts
28 connected to the episode. However, because of the numerous repetitions the reader is made aware of the significance of Sutpen’s arrival, just not how and why it is significant. Thus the reader can experience the narrators’ frustration by the scarcity of historical details to which they must ascribe temporal certainty before they can link the past with the present to enable the establishment of continuity and a sense of order.
The most apparent repetition is the fact that the four different narrators provide several versions of the same narrative, meaning that each element and each event is repeated
numerous times. Quentin’s narration in particular is obsessively repetitive, filled with dirges at having to tell and hear the Sutpen story over and over again: “thinking Yes. I have heard too much, I have been told too much, too long” (207), a notion repeated on pages 174 and 261. For Quentin, it appears that the reality of his existence and the link to the past of which he tries to escape, never end – an impression which is established through his telling and re- telling the Sutpen story. Within the narration provided by Rosa, Mr. Compson, Quentin, and Shreve, Faulkner’s language is noticeably repetitive, something which accentuates the uncertainty and unreliable nature of these narrators. It is not only the story plot that is repeated; words and phrases are repeated as well. This phrase notes the townspeople’s reaction to Sutpen’s arrival: “the stranger’s name went back and forth among the places of business and of idleness and among the residences in steady strophe and antistrophe: Sutpen.
Sutpen. Sutpen. Sutpen.” (32), adding a sense of theatrical mysticism to the narration, accentuating the uncertainty connected to the character of Sutpen. The same notion can be detected through Rosa’s excessive repetition of her claiming to hold “no brief” for herself (15,17,18, 162-65), and Mr. Compson’s imaginative re-creation of “perhaps” and “I can imagine”, are also repeated excessively. These repetitions are the narrating character’s attempts of establishing certainties. However, the persistent repetition only serves to accentuate the utter uncertainty driving the narrating character’s relentless re-creation. The novel even ends in repetition, when Quentin tries to make sense of his own feelings towards the South: “I dont hate it,” Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; “I dont hate it,” he said. I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!” (378). Quentin’s quick and immediate response is meant to show certainty, however, the repetitious “panting” accentuates the confusion he is
experiencing when faced with Shreve’s question.
